I'm a writer, journalist, and the editor of The Gambit, the alt-weekly newspaper in New Orleans.

Journalism: My work has appeared in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Globe & Mail (Canada), The Times- Picayune (New Orleans), The Oregonian, and Willamette Week, as well as in magazines including Details, Vogue, Publishers Weekly, and Portland Monthly.

Publishing:Tight Shot, my first novel, was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Its sequel, Hot Shot, was roundly ignored by everyone, but was a far better book. I'm also a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

Stage: I was a member of the Groundlings and Circle Repertory West in Los Angeles, and am a playwright (see "Stage" in the right-hand rail).

January 18, 2008

Sweet, savage, sustainable plagiarism

For more than a week now, the publishing world has been talking about Cassie Edwards, the bestselling romance novelist who seems unclear on the difference between research and plagiarism. The romance fans who operate the blog Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books were the first to publicize the similarities between Edwards' prose and that of a number of other writers (some of whose works are in the public domain, and some of whose are not). As more examples were found by the Smart Bitches and their readers, Signet Books, Edwards' publisher, seems to have morphed its response from "nothing to see here" to "um...we're looking into it."

Edwards seems hurt and puzzled by the whole matter. She isn't talking to the press, but an alleged response from her has surfaced, which reads in part:

The sad thing is that I am writing these books now in a way to honor
our Native Americans, past, present and in the future. And I am
honoring my great grandmother who was a full blood Cheyenne. She would
be so proud of me if she could read what I am writing about the Indians
who have been so maligned for so long. And do you know? I feel picked
on now as our Native American Indians have always been picked on
throughout history. I am trying to spread the word about them and what
do I get? Spiteful women who have found a way to bring attention to
themselves, by getting in the media in this horrible way.

Paul Tolmé, a nature writer, Newsweek contributor, and plagiaree, is also feeling picked on. He wrote a remarkably generous, funny column about the experience of having his research about black-footed ferrets inserted clumsily into the sweet savage mouths of Edwards' characters:

First I was angry. Then I had to laugh. To see my textbook descriptions
of ferrets in a bodice-ripper, as dialogue between a hunky American
Indian and a lustful pioneer woman who several pages later have sex on
a mossy riverbank, is the height of absurdity....

The prose is standard romance-novel shlock. Bramlett's bosom heaves.
Shadow Bear feels a longing in his loins. On page 195, after several
false starts to stoke the furnaces of readers, Bramlett and Shadow Bear
finally get down to business. They have sex in his teepee on some
animal pelts. Hungrily, their sinuous bodies rock and quake until both
explode in rapturous pleasure. When the teepee flaps are rocking, don't
come a-knocking.

Then, a few pages later, as Bramlett and Shadow Bear bask in their postcoital glow, my ferrets arrive on the scene....

"They are so named because of their dark legs," Shadow Bear says, to
which Shiona responds: "They are so small, surely weighing only about
two pounds and measuring two feet from tip to tail."

Shiona
then tells Shadow Bear how she once read about ferrets in a book she
took from the study of her father. "I discovered they are related to
minks and otters. It is said their closest relations are European
ferrets and Siberian polecats," she says. "Researchers theorize that
polecats crossed the land bridge that once linked Siberia and Alaska,
to establish the New World population."

Ohmygod that is so hot.

I think that Edwards truly believes that she's done nothing wrong (which doesn't excuse her behavior, of course), and that a very patient attorney will be explaining things to her.

Can't give the same benefit-doubt ratio in an alleged plagiarism case closer to home -- a case that, like Edwards', was originally discussed online and is now finding its way into local media. But I do hear that one of the Paul Tolmés in this particular tempest-in-a-tepee is weighing his options and his response, and other media are working on stories, stories that promise to be more savage than sweet.

Comments

Hello again, Kevin!

I'm glad to see you picked up the thread involving Cassie Edwards and all other interested parties. Regardless of the outcome - and it's starting to look like the scope is pretty wide - I think it's important to at least highlight these issues to others out there who don't realize that copy+paste=plagiarism. Plus Tolme's article makes for a good read, regardless of one's opinion.

This, is Awesome, but ya know, it is what it is. Plagiarism is apparently the new hood-ornament popping of the writing world, and he is obviously all about the hoods. At least when he authored those pages, he is giving back by making it fun to call him on it through pay-per-click organic searches.

What an incredible, Perfect Storm. Way to be sustainable.

Just a reminder Portland: Don't be hatin' just because the man has some snarky comments. Even if, uh, he didn't author them. Originally.

Sheezus. I mean, can't we all just get along?

All seriousness aside (ha - another one) -- This is rather incredible. I haven't been keeping up with FoodDude and company for a couple of months now only out of laziness. Looks like I'll be hanging out on the boards over there for the next few weeks.

What is just utterly mind boggling to me is that despite being caught plagiarizing twice now where he lost at least one job because of it (Jefferson Public Radio, who is very open that they fired him for stealing the content of others), Stein just keeps at it like he won't get caught again or doesn't care.

Outside of the plagiarism thing, why the hell would you have a business that is dependent on good publicity and write things on your blog that will negatively affect your business? How can Stein think that by publicly criticizing his staff, his diners, his PR company and his food purveyors on his blog that this will possibly help his business? As food dude said, Stein is creating his own bad press and then blaming it on everyone else.

BOOKS

Booklist:
"A worthy successor to Tight Shot, Allman's insider view of the seamier side of Hollywood is not only hip and entertaining but also has something serious to say about our insatiable hunger for tabloid thrills."

Washington Post:
"Barbed, breezy and often pretty funny...sharp and entertaining. Allman can be very funny, and Hot Shot complements nicely the less forgiving takes on Los Angeles as the future of us all. "

----------

EDGAR AWARD NOMINEE
BEST FIRST NOVEL
MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA

Booklist:
"Allman turns a very sardonic pen loose on Hollywood's glitz-and-glamour crowd in this entertaining first novel... An impressive debut and an almost sure thing for a sequel."

STAGE

BOO AND THE SHREVEPORT BABY

A French Quarter convenience-store clerk has a hilariously traumatic encounter with a pair of Shreveport tourists. Part of Native Tongues 3 (Le Chat Noir, New Orleans; 2001; Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago; 2006).

A recreation of an evening at the notorious New Orleans 1950s female-impersonator nightclub My-O-My (Le Chat Noir, New Orleans; 2005).

THE LOVE GIFT

A lonely man discovers purpose when he intercepts a televangelist's letters from his neighbor's mailbox. Part of the Dramarama New Plays Festival (Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; 2004).

BABYDADDY

A black father discovers that no good deed goes unpunished when he helps his white neighbor bail her son out of Orleans Parish Prison. (Le Chat Noir, New Orleans; 2004; Walker Percy Southern Playwrights Festival, Covington; 2007).

TWO IN THE BUSH

An evening of comedies. In The Stud Mule, the world's richest woman arranges to be impregnated by a doltish escort; in Snatching Victory, an earnest college student runs afoul of her lecherous professor and the dour head of a women's-studies department (Le Chat Noir, New Orleans; 2003).

NEW ORLEANS READING

Patty Friedmann: A Little Bit RuinedOne of the first post-Katrina novels, and probably destined to be one of the best. Friedmann's sequel to Eleanor Rushing finds her crazy heroine still holding everything together after the storm (after a fashion), until she has to leave New Orleans and she falls apart physically as well as mentally. Mordantly, morbidly funny.

Tom Piazza: Why New Orleans MattersThe best post-Katrina book I've read. In 150 small pages, Piazza explicates the New Orleans experience simply and beautifully. I'll be passing this one on to anyone who wonders "But why would anyone want to live there?".